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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator compare the dead woman's hair to?

2. In the simile that the narrator uses when he describes holding Gin's breasts in his hands on page 234, to what does he compare her breasts?

3. Why does Gin tell the narrator "Stop" when they are just about to have sex (236)?

4. What kind of buildings are on the lovers' lane?

5. On the fall night when the narrator realizes that his relationship with Gin is over, what are they arguing about?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do the first paragraph's details about the father's car convey about the family's social class?

2. What is the inclusion of details about the House of Dong intended to convey?

3. On page 233, the narrator describes the girlfriend's mother's car as having "a rosary twined [around] the rearview mirror like a beaded, black snake with silver, cruciform fangs." Describe the tone of this image and explain how it is related to the narrator's later description of unbuttoning his girlfriend's shirt.

4. What is the rhetorical effect of the diction used in the following description of the setting at Oak Street Beach: "The lake had turned hot pink, rose rapture, pearl amethyst with dusk, then washed in night black with a ruff of silver foam. Beyond a momentary horizon, silent bolts of heat lightning throbbed" (234)?

5. When the narrator and Gin are on the beach, what does the narrator imagine the people along the Gold Coast doing, and what thematic ideas does his description convey?

6. What point about the relationship between men and women is made by the details the narrator observes on his train ride home after the night at Oak Street Beach?

7. What is foreshadowed by the page 233 description of their "lover's lane"?

8. Explain the relationship of the story's title to the Amichai poem excerpt used as an epigraph.

9. What does Gin dream about a baby in the water, and what does she believe her dream means?

10. How is the From Here to Eternity love scene evoked ironically when the narrator and Gin are on the beach?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim regarding the theme of "We Didn't." Support your ideas with evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 2

In interviews, Dybek has mentioned that "We Didn't" began as a poem. He believes that it still occupies a prose space that is very close to the border of becoming poetry. Write an essay that analyzes the lyric nature of "We Didn't." How is it created, and what purpose does it serve? Support your assertions with evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 3

Stuart Dybek is also a respected poet. Read his poem "Night of Voyeurs," (available online) in which he is also writing about sex and the city of Chicago. Consider what role sexuality plays in this poem and then write an essay that compares and contrasts the meaning of sex in this poem with the meaning of sex in "We Didn't."

(see the answer keys)

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